Risk Wise

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Assessing natural hazard risk

in the Asia-Pacific region:

first we must ask the right questions

Alanna Simpson, Phil Cummins, Jonathan Griffin, Trevor Dhu and John Schneider, Geoscience Australia

atural disasters are a frequent occurrence in the Asia-

Pacific region due to a combination of very dense

population and very hazard-prone areas. The Australian

Government has recently been called upon to play a significant

role in responding to natural disasters such as earthquakes in

Pakistan and Indonesia, landslides in the Philippines, tsunami

events in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, cyclone related

flooding in Papua New Guinea, and the regular occurrence of

cyclones in the south-west Pacific and south-east Asia. There is

an increasing trend in the number and size of disasters as the

effects of climate change are felt, and rapid population growth

and urbanization results in increasingly large and vulnerable

populations in areas exposed to natural hazards.

Natural disasters have been clearly demonstrated to

disproportionately affect developing countries – more

than 90 per cent of natural disaster deaths and 98 per

cent of people affected by natural disasters are from

developing countries.

This fact has considerable impli-

cations for international aid programmes. First, natural

disasters significantly compromise development

progress and reduce the effectiveness of aid investments.

Progress toward the achievement of the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) might be slowed or halted

depending upon severity. In particular, progress on

MDG1 – halving poverty and hunger by 2015 – may

be halted or reversed as a consequence of a natural disas-

This school in Ghanool, Pakistan, collapsed during the 2005 South-Asia earthquake killing several children. The vulnerability of non-residential structures such as

schools, offices and hospitals is no less important than for residential structures

Image: J Griffin